This album is one of the first melodic death metal albums I ever bought. It is also still one of my absolute favorites in my collection. To be honest I don't know anyone who is just as fascinated by this album as I am. Therefore I will try to explain what it is I feel there is so special about it.
Scarlet Silhouettes was
Withering Surface's first full length album - it is also still the best of all the ones they have made in my opinion. The style is melodic death metal, and the music resembles that of Swedish
In Flames and At The Gates a bit. People have mistakenly categorized
Withering Surface as a black metal band because of Michael Andersen's screaming vocals - but it really is melodic death. Michael switches between two styles of singing - a screaming "black-like" vocal and a more traditional growl vocal.
The songs are not about death and carnage (sorry to disappoint you) - they are all about love and sex, and they have sort of a sadomasochistic theme I might add. The lyrics are really great, and it is nice to see some inventiveness in this matter.
The first track is the title number
Scarlet Silhouettes - it is also maybe the best known
Withering Surface number of all time. When you think of
Withering Surface you think of this track. It has a really cool intro, and some very catchy guitar riffs. Jesper Strömblad (
In Flames) does a guest solo in this track - it is a true classic. The next song is called
Beautybeast and it just as brilliant as the previous. The drums in this song are extremely cool - relatively simple yet perfect. Jacob Gundel (drummer) certainly knows what he is doing.
A lily white sign,
. And she blossomed and
Majestic mistress are also near perfect - they have catchy refrains and some really catchy guitar riffs. I don't know what went wrong with the next song
Farewell - it really isn't good at all. The idea with using female vocals is good enough, but it just doesn't work in this song. Also the growling vocal sounds bad. Fortunately the next songs
Behind the other side and
Pitiful emblems are back to the amazing
Withering Surface standard. The last song
Your shadow my shelter is very experimental just as
Farewell, but this time it works really well. There are some clean goth vocals in this number, and it doesn't seem misplaced at all this time. It is a really great song!
Overall this is a fantastic album - nothing less. With exception of a single track all the songs are extremely well put together. All the music is written by Alan Tvedebrink (lead guitar) and he has certainly done a great job with this album. If you are not into growling and screaming this is maybe not an album for you, but else I urge you to go out and buy this album.
Best Songs: Scarlet Silhouettes, Beautybeast, A lily white sign
Written by
Anders Sunday, August 25, 2002
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